Patent specification DE 35 26 766 A1, filed by the same applicant, discloses a truck with mutually separate and independent cabs disposed at the front end of the vehicle chassis, comprising a driver's cab with all the controls needed to operate the truck and a crew and/or equipment cab immediately behind. The driver's cab, which also has seats for passengers, is linked to the crew and/or equipment cab by openings in a rear wall of the driver's cab and a front wall of the crew and/or equipment cab facing it, forming a passageway for persons. A sealing arrangement surrounding the openings provides a closure sealed off from the outside. In the region of the forward front wall, the driver's cab of the truck is mounted on the vehicle chassis so that it can pivot about an axis extending parallel with a support surface and perpendicular to the travel direction, in order to provide access to the drive motor and auxiliary units disposed underneath the floor in the event of maintenance work. The disadvantage of such an arrangement is the inconvenient manipulation needed to detach the seal arrangement from the driver's cab and to enable the driver's cab to be pivoted.
An entry to the driver's cab of a utility vehicle, in particular for a cab-over-engine truck, is known from patent specification DE 38 26 542 A1, whereby entry to the driver's cab of a utility vehicle is facilitated by entry steps in the form of rotating steps. When the entry doors to the driver's cab are opened, these can be moved at the same time from a pivoted-in position at the exterior front into an outwardly pivoted position or can be moved by a separate drive system. The rotating steps are mounted on an axis within the structure, extending perpendicular to the support surface, and the steps have more or less circular cut-out faces in their projection towards the support surface. This affords the vehicle driver effortless entry to the driver's cab, but inadvertent pivoting during entry is detrimental to the safety of the user.
Patent specification AT 406 573 B discloses a box structure for a utility vehicle, in particular a fire-fighting vehicle, in which a passageway linking the driver's cab and the box structure is provided between the driver's cab and a front-end transverse support element for the box structure lying behind, and a peripheral elastic transition and sealing element is disposed in the region of side walls of the box structure and a roof support plate, which produces a sealed connection but does not prevent various vibrations. A transition and sealing element of this type represents a very complex system if the intention is to provide a pivotable driver's cab.
The objective of the present invention is to provide a truck, in particular a fire-fighting utility truck, which is easy to handle during maintenance and during operation and which is operationally reliable during different conditions of usage.